“They think that if we go with our pockets full it will condition our vote,” says a public employee who works at the Extremadura Health Service (SES). “It is insulting our intelligence,” says another official. “As if charging, which you are going to do the same days later, would lead to changing the direction of the vote,” he reasons. But someone in the Junta de Extremadura thought otherwise, convinced that some percentage could be mobilized and decided to advance the payment of the payroll in several days, between five and six depending on the public administration sector. There are more than 49,000 public employees in Extremadura dependent on the Junta and a total of 91,000 if the rest of the administrations (local, state, etc.) are added.
The salary advance has also been received by the labor personnel working in the regional administration. It must be taken into account that Extremadura is one of the autonomous communities where, according to all the surveys, the definitive result to form the government is up in the air and could depend on a handful of votes with respect to the sum of blocks (PSOE and Podemos on the one hand and PP and Vox on the other).
Public employees represent more than 30% of the active population in Extremadura. And they have been all those who belong to the most representative areas, that is to say, those of Health, General Administration of the Board and Education, who have received with surprise in their bank account the advance of their payroll corresponding to the month of May. In this way, with the municipal and regional elections set for this Sunday the 28th, the executive of Guillermo Fernández Vara ordered the payment of payrolls in advance.
The process that is usually followed is the following, according to a public employee of the SES to EL MUNDO: “In Health, the afternoon of the 30th is usually charged every month, normally, unless it falls on a Saturday or Sunday, which is then charged the 29th, at most”. On this occasion, the payroll in this Health sector began to be paid on Thursday the 25th. In the General Administration sector it is paid on the 31st and has also been advanced several days. The same, in Education.
The Junta de Extremadura attributes the advance to a matter of time adjustment. “The payment of the payroll of public employees is made on the 27th and 28th. As in this month of May, they coincide on non-business days as it is a weekend, you had to choose between paying it in advance, as has actually been done, or a posteriori, with the damage that it would entail. Hence, the payment was made on the 26th to guarantee administrative management due to the circumstances that come together”, they assure from the Ministry of Finance to EL MUNDO.
In addition, the administration adds that “it is added that there are many officials of the Junta de Extremadura who participate as representatives of the Administration in the electoral day of next Sunday May 28 and that, as a consequence of this, they will have compensation for hours during the working day of Monday 29”. Likewise, this Friday the 26th is a local holiday in the city of Cáceres and, next June 1, it will be in Mérida.
According to the newspaper Hoy, also in these days prior to the elections, public employees belonging to the Education sector have received the corresponding arrears that the regional administration owed them since 2019. The payment was made on Thursday.
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